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On a windy Summer Solistice, Ben Klibreck was in my sights, having missed it out on my last Sutherland trip in April. The skies were clear and the day was mostly sunny so absolutely no navigation needed.
The route!I pulled in just south of the Vagastie Bridge, where I found an NC500-stylee big white beastie stuffed with kippers (that's people kipping, not fish...), and crossed over the road to the obvious track.
Car, Vagastie Bridge and Meall an FhuarainIt's a fair old trudge along the west flank, and pretty punishing in the wind (no adrenalin to take your mind off it) but once up it's a real joy to hang out on this giant in the wilderness. Looking down on Strathnaver, Grummore and Grumbeg I found myself thinking of the thousands of years of subsistence farming, broch-building, weather-battling and, latterly, Clearance-miseries it would have witnessed since 'umans arrived.
In the absence of adrenalin, the generous views of beautiful Ben Loyal start early on from this western-approach angle.
Ben Loyal from Ben KlibreckA bit boggy underfoot, but nothing compared to Ben Loyal in April, and I was soon at Cnoc Sgriodan. It looked like a good place for a coffee and a stop to look at Bens Hope and Loyal..
Cnoc Sgriodain (second cairn) looking at cloud on Meall nan Con
Hope and Loyal from Cnoc Sgriodain cairn 2This was where, looking down on to Loch Naver, I found myself imagining what it might have looked like when it was inhabited.
Loch Naver and li'l Loch nan UanThe silence, apart from the wind, was incongruous up against the pictures forming in my head. And then out of the silence I heard a plover.
Noisy golden plover
Beautiful little wader which visits us down south in the winterThen it was a drop down into the bogfest before the bealach. The bog cotton was waving cheerfully in the wind.
Bog cotton happy in its swampAnd the dwarf cornel was in flower all around me, happy in its peaty habitat.
Dwarf Cornel or BunchberryThe white 'petals' are bracts and they protect the little flowers in the middle from the elements while also attracting bees and flies to pollinate them. They're one of those great little plants which shoot out their pollen super-fast - in less than half a millisecond. It's one of the fastest plant actions you'd find anywhere, and here it is on the otherwise less-than-dramatic Ben Klibreck. So, if you climb this hill and experience that niggling wish to be on something more pointy and varied, you could add to your mild frustration by waiting for the cornel to shoot its pollen out and then fail to catch it on camera. Now wouldn't that be a treat
A bit further on, out of the bog and just below the cone, a ring ouzel was hopping about looking for food. They're another visitor to us down south, and one sometimes drops down from the neolithic flint mines behind where I live to see what's on offer in my garden. I gather they also hang out at Glenmore Lodge.
Ring OuzelOn this windy day I met just two other people, at the foot of the cone. They were struggling down in the high wind, so I skirted round a bit to the south to get out of the worst of it. Sheltered now, and with the sun beginning to warm up both the hill and me, I made the most of the lovely solitude, the warm sun on my face and the quiet.
SE view from Klibreck to Loch a Bhealaich
Loch Shin in the distance, where a couple of days later I watched an osprey catch a fish.
Bens Griam Mor and Beg and Strath of KildonanSneaking up on the trig point as I was, to stay out of the wind, I found a little ruin just NE of the Con summit. Shieling? Or original surveyors' shelter?
Shelter ruin on NE of Meall nan Con
Ben Griams and ruinThen it was back into the wind and up to the broken trig on the summit.
Windy summit with Ben More Assynt and Conival behind
SW pano from summit
NE view to Badanloch
Ben Loyal and a bit of insensitive plantation stuffInside the broken trig is a box of some sort. Wonder what that's about. Wondering was all I could do - it's not really accessible.
Is that a kist o gold?I was unimpressed by the broken eggshell (chicken) up here. Left by the two people who'd been struggling down? I picked up as much as I could and carried it out. 'Leave nothing' - it's not that hard is it? Grrr.
Broken trig and eggshellAfter that, and a linger, and my own lunch, down I went with a stop at the Crask Inn in mind. On my way down I found a pair of ptarmigan. The sun had gone back in and they were very effectively camouflaged against the sparse outcrops of rock (well, I might not have have seen them if they hadn't been running about).
Ptarmigan camouflage
"If I sit down, you won't see me"The male wasn't going to sit down, so his is a blurry portrait.
Blurry male on left, guarding his sitting hen to the right.Then it was just the trudge back to the two cairns of Cnoc Sgriodain...
Two cairns...a glance back up the heathery lichen-y track to the Con...
Lichen and Con... and a last stop for a drink and pic of an orchid.
Marsh orchidThen down the road to the Crask. I met two cyclists there who'd ridden for 13 days from Penzance, averaging 80-90 miles a day. While that way round would make sense normally, and was pretty good for them today, for most of their trip the wind had been coming from the north, so they'd been up against it all the way. Douglas, the landlord, appeared greeting me with "Do you know the one about the vegan, the vegetarian and the coeliac who walk into a pub?" (ref our visit in April when, with a decent amount of notice, he'd done us proud).
I left when the cyclists left for Bettyhill so they wouldn't have to have me overtake them, and made my way up the road to Tongue.
